HD 'Magi'
by tigersilver
Summary: AU, EWE. A Christmas story.


Author: tigersilver

Title: 'Magi'

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: H/D

Warnings/Summary: AU, EWE. None other than that. For my friends, and for those who might be, and those who were, Happy Hollydaze, from Tiger. A gift for you, from me.

**HD 'Magi'**

"It's nothing much…" Draco swallowed, looked away.

"Um, neither's mine, really." Harry stared intently at the coffee shop's posters: lovely verdant images of Costa Rica, sunny climes. It was frigid in London and the sky was lowering with unshed snow. "Just a little…something"

"But—go ahead. Open it," Draco still wouldn't look. His lips twisted though and Harry thought maybe it was a near facsimile of a smile. "Right? T'is the season and all." The passersby outside the window, even being nothing more than red-nosed, scarf-wrapped ghosts reflecting, were more of interest to him than Harry. "Get it over with, Potter."

"Okay," Harry pulled the small gaily festooned box toward himself across the table, deftly avoiding the sticky spots and the places where the cream from Draco's whip had dripped. "If…if you open mine."

"Right…right." Draco moved his gaze from the plate glass windows and stared at the small item Harry had shoved forward as he drew his own present toward him. "Surely." He never once looked, but only touched a fingertip to the loopy oversized bow. "Nice of you, to think of me."

"Ready?" Harry asked breathlessly. He ignored the comment; nothing he could say wouldn't incriminate him. His hands cupped his gift instead, caressing.

It was…frightening, somehow. He felt poised upon the edge of a great divide and as if perhaps he'd fall or perhaps he'd fly—it was solely up to the reserved man seated opposite.

"…Draco?" he added, hesitantly, when his companion did nothing more than sigh and stare fixedly at Harry's offering.

"…Yes." Draco finally-finally—raised his chin; met Harry's searching stare. "Together, then, Potter." He quirked his lips wryly. "The suspense is killing me, you know? What is it this year—another tome on Potions? Broom care kit, maybe."

"No!" Harry shot back, indignantly. "You've enough books—and bloody kits!"

"Or gloves," Draco continued as if Harry hadn't squirmed in his seat and blushed at all. "The perfect gift, aren't they, for the man who seems to have everything?"

Harry heard the bitterness, though he wasn't sure why Draco might feel that way. The dregs of the cup taste that no amount of sugared whip or icing on cakes could quite disguise. He gulped hard against it—it sent a funny shimmy through his stomach; not pleasant—and his eyes fell again to his gift.

Three years. Three years it had been and still it was only shagging and meals in Muggle restaurants. No lie-ins on Sundays (Narcissa might wonder where Malfoy was; what he'd gotten up to all night); no strolling Diagon, hand in hand (the _Prophet_ would have a field day, wouldn't they?). Just this…scant meetings in-between cases and the occasional feel of Draco's palm spread at the small of his back in the Ministry lifts. As if by accident, should anyone be looking at them.

Small gestures: a quick snog in the lav, interrupted by Zach Smith barging in, whistling. The touch of fingertips tapping a jaunty tattoo on his knee under a conference table.

And he sneaking glances at Draco in return, whenever he was certain Draco was intent on Dawlish's instructions, or when seated across the table in the canteen. And the passing brush of shoulders budging in the corridors and the exchange of smiles no one caught but they two. No, no one saw. Stealth-and-Tracking had its practical applications, yes.

Not enough, that. Little scraps, here and there. Not enough.

"You shouldn't have, really."

Harry eyed his gift warily. Last year it had been a mug, emblazoned with a kited image from the pages of _Witch Weekly_—that horrid photo spread of Harry as the Wizarding World's premiere bachelor—and a vaguely ribald caption. Charmed, though, and nicely, to stay always full of his particular brand of tea, just the way he liked it: very stewed, two sugars and three creams, stirred lightly. No lemon.

Last year he'd not known what to give Draco. Other than his arsehole, his willing body, his furtive kisses, all those. But Draco had those anyway, and Harry thought they might not be enough, quite. He'd settled for calfskin gloves, handmade, lined with Charmed cashmere, and the hope that Draco's hands would warm to match his heart.

"On the count of three, then," Draco mumbled, a fingertip still soothing down an errant curl to the brightly shaded ribbon. He'd not touched Harry's gift beyond that, as if it were something terribly dangerous—a magical cabinet he'd no interest in opening. "Alright?"

Harry nodded jerkily. "Alright. On your count."

"One."

Draco's voice was low and cool and he seemed to have withdrawn deep within himself, impervious to the quiet sounds of people about them, giggled and sipping, spending time with friends or family whilst out shopping. Just as an island, rising spare and tall, caught meditating amidst teeming reefs.

"One," Harry echoed, and almost said more.

But his heart fell slightly in his chest, a peculiar sensation. It wasn't gloves this year. It wasn't a picture frame or tickets to the Magpies or anything like. Three years, right? He couldn't very well give that sort of thing to Draco, not again. Shoddy stuff for three years.

"I…hope you like it," he managed, poking the cellotape on his. "I mean, it took me a while, looking…"

It sprang apart at the seam, the paper, too soon for his liking, and he saw a glimpse of velveteen-covered box lurking beneath. Cufflinks, maybe? Last year had been a tie tack, discreetly carved with the Potter family crest. Tucked in the mug box, like an afterthought.

"It's distinguished, Potter," Draco had sneered then, though his eyes danced with merriment, lighting the grey panes with a glow. "A touch of gold about you. You could use a little more of that, don't you know? Scars are so passé these days; everyone has them."

"Wanker!' he'd scolded and proceeded to adore his tie-tack. Wore it always, and not so much for the Potter crest as for the fact that Draco had given it him. "Sod you."

_Jewelry_, he'd thought, a month ago, when he'd been casting about for a gift for his shagging mate. _Jewelry!_ It had seemed so satisfactory….till he recalled Draco was wealthy and it would be coals to Newcastle, likely. But still…it wouldn't leave his head, the notion. Muggles looked upon jewelry as being important, as being a worthy gift. And he'd not been much trained up in the art of giving to his lover. Had never before given much of anything to anyone, outside Hermione and the Weasleys.

Was a bracelet inside, not a ring. He was too afraid to purchase a ring, not knowing what Draco would say to it. Or perhaps it was more that he was terrified of how Draco would look when he opened it: taken aback that Harry had even presumed. Shocked, perhaps, and then…and then probably kindly cautious. Forgiving, even, his real response tucked well below the ingrained civility, the perfect mask.

_Poor Potter_, Draco would most likely think to himself, _not understanding what's appropriate._ _I shouldn't tease him, I suppose. Not his fault his people had no manners. _

"Two."

Was it Harry's imagination or was Draco's finger shaking? He seemed pale, even for his snowy-skinned standard. And he wouldn't look Harry in the face again, the prat. Kept his eyes on the little box before him, and seemed content to watch his own digit, dancing in the whisper of air layered above the wrapping and riband.

"…Two."

Arithmancy. Three plus two should equal a decent gift, right? Like jewelry. He'd taken the chance; had searched out and bought this thin platinum wristlet. Had had the shopkeeper add a tiny but very powerful charm to it and paid through the nose for the pleasure: a fine golden snitch, minute wings spread like an angel's, spelled to hum and buzz in Harry's ear if ever Draco should be in danger. It was, Harry decided, the least he could do. To keep his love safe, or at least have his back.

"Ready, Potter? Such excitement."

Despite the drawl, Draco's hand flexed convulsively above the small box, as if he were about to grab it, to take it to him and rip away all the concealing paper and bow—to expose it to his surgical gaze and his precise, calculating mind, and give him free leave to conjure up all manner of humiliating ideas as to why his friend—his partner and his shag buddy—would hand him a piece of very expensive jewelry for Christmas.

"Three," Draco breathed, and the wisp of his breath crossed the table somehow, cinnamon-scented, and Harry inhaled shakily.

"Yes." He said it simply and let his fingers do what they willed, wreaking damage upon the present Draco had gotten him. Gone in a flash and crunch-crinkle was the green-and-white striped wrap, the ribbon of contrasting scarlet satin coiled uselessly round his discarded mug, tangling. "Yes—and make sure to do yours, will you? Same time as me."

Harry couldn't look; daren't, even as he found a box of the approximate size of his opening with stolid clam-like resistance within his cupped hands. Didn't want to see Draco's eyes instantly veil behind pale lashes, his firm lips thin, just sufficient to indicate his faint disapproval. _Too intimate_, he'd likely think. _Too…much, least for one bloke to give to another. Not—_

"Harry!"

Harry's hands stilled where they cradled his little box.

"Ohhh…Harry."

"What?" he gulped hard and forced himself to look up, finally. Only to see a pale Draco Malfoy, eyes brilliant, smiling giddily. "What, Draco? Don't you like it?"

"You daft fool! Must you always be aping me?" But he was laughing, openly, and the sight of it drew eyes and mutters from the other sippers and chatterers. Harry blushed scarlet, staring down at his box because he'd nowhere else that was even remotely possible—and if Draco continued to look like that, with that expression of laughing wonder, Harry would throw caution to the winds and be scrambling 'cross the table, snogging him for all he was worth.

Draco stifled himself sufficient to admit, "Not that I mind, Harry. You've good taste, at least."

_Trumbull and Bullfinches_, read the incised golden script on the top of his gift. _Fine Jewelers. By Order of Monarchy and Ministry, est. 1746. _

Harry caught his breath, vaguely appalled. "No…" he mumbled, flushing. "Couldn't be."

Was it the exact same jeweler he'd consulted—the same box….the same gift?

A tiny snitch fluttered fretfully within when he at last revealed the contents to darting eyes, cracking the finely wrought hinge the barest bit to peek.

"…Draco. Draco." Harry's gaze flew swiftly, great green orbs of confusion behind the frames Hermione summarily replaced his old comfy ones with. He shoved them up his nose with the back of his hand, sniffing the air like a wary dog, his chilled fingers smoothing the velvet continuously. "Draco?"

"Harry?' Draco sniggered at him, in a friendly sort of way. "What, surprised we think alike? After all this time. Prat. Be stranger if we didn't."

"Oh?'

Harry quirked his eyebrows, felt the tiny frown growing on his forehead smooth out, just like magic. Watched Draco, same as he'd suss out a napping dragon he'd had the bollocks to tickle.

But—no fear.

"C'mere, you. Come round the table."

Draco laughed aloud at him, or perhaps it was only Harry's expression, and truly, Harry wasn't capable of not. He lunged, even as Draco shifted, and couldn't look away for the life of him, no matter how the other patrons were staring. Draco laughing was a smashing sight: all white teeth and nostrils flared and that rich chuckle sounding from a throat made for sucking ardent love bites on.

"I want to wear this. And let me put mine on you, Harry."

"It's…" Harry blinked, feeling stupid. But what he'd seen—and there was no earthly reason for Draco to pull pranks on him. "It's the same, isn't it? Yours…and mine?"

"Idiot," Draco twinkled fondly, grabbing at Harry's crooked elbow. He tugged at it, familiarly. "Of course it is. I don't know what I was so worried about, even—_of course_ it was. Is."

Harry blushed and let himself be drawn nearer, almost knocking his half-cold mug of cocoa over in the process. Draco's grasp slipped up his forearm to his collarbone, fingers gripping strongly, only to snake through and round to his back, dodging right in the warm sweaty space between Harry's upper arm and his perspiring—gosh, but he'd been _so_ nervous!—armpit.

He shivered, barely repressing an unmanly giggle. His heart nigh bubbled up his throat, trying to burst out and fly away, like the twinned snitches.

Two tiny snitches. Exactly the same, he was sure, 'cept his gift had a 'DM' engraved upon it. He wondered…

"Hold still, Harry," Draco chided, having wrestled him most the way round the tiny round café table, chair legs screeching eldritch across the tiled floor as they came together. He dropped a quick kiss on Harry's ear, murmuring sweet nothings about 'squirmy gits' and 'little fools who wouldn't stay put.'

Harry grinned madly—a great barmy beam of delight—and snuck sideways glances as best as he could upon Draco's intent face as _his_ gift—his matching bracelet from Draco, the wonder of all wonders—was clasped firmly about his exposed wrist.

"Did we?" He was chuckling as well, and it seemed as he couldn't stop. Nor did he want to. "Did we really, Draco? The exact…?"

"Oh, yes." Draco, satisfied with a job well done, thrust his own arm out and shook it impatiently. "Of course, Harry. Doesn't it figure? Do mine now," he added, and the hand still at Harry's spine spread wide and possessively, a living blanket at his back. "Do mine," he said again, nuzzling away at Harry's earlobe, lipping it. "I want to see yours on me. On…us."

Harry did, with much fumbling and Draco helping him by getting in the way with fingers, pointy nose and curious lips as he struggled to release the staying charm that had held the fiercely bobbing little snitch at bay in its box.

"Here, then," he murmured softly, for they were close together as they could be, scrunched up on the one end of the table. The other shoppers had gone back to politely ignoring them, but for the occasional sly sideways glance of amusement. "We match."

"That we do, Harry."

_Young love, is it?_ The onlooker's averted eyes proclaimed, their collective thought so loud it was almost audible, even over the steamy hiss of the espresso machine. _Silly wankers; but…cheers to it, yeah? Not so bad, that. _

Harry blushed—or rather, he felt his face burn a little hotter, even as a cool, clean-shaven cheek pressed lightly against his forehead. All the not-quite-stares left him shy. Draco ducked his chin and nosed his beak into the tumble of Harry's mussed hair, seeking the bob of his Adam's apple, distracting him.

Delightfully.

"Do find yourselves a room, dears." One spry elderly matron took it upon herself to lean over her tea set and whisper in carrying tones. She sent a surreptitious glance around the crowded café. "That's the ticket. In my day…"

Draco paid her no mind.

"I should have expected it, really, but I didn't think…I mean I…only hoped."

He blinked slowly as he drew away, and Harry had to pull back a wee bit to even see the trace of lingering uncertainty. No, it wasn't the usual calm air of arrogance that confronted him, the severely tailored Malfoy sense of being 'utterly correct in all things' that Harry saw in the depths of icy glass. And those refracted panes to Draco's soul weren't nearly so frosty, not as they were usually. They were melting, dark as molten pewter, and Harry's insides melted right along with them.

"But I might've guessed." Draco shrugged slightly, his hand sliding to Harry's nape. "If I'd thought."

"Should have guessed?" Harry asked, carefully, because really—could the two of them actually be that much of the same mind? Over this? "That I'd—that you would—what? What, Draco? What odds? It's not like its so obvious…is it?"

"To me it is."

Harry glowered, briefly, mutinously. Earned a quick smooch on his nose tip for punishment; a narrow-eyed glance.

"Daft. As houses—no! We're both daft as Lovegood's Nargles, Harry. That's all I was saying."

"Not daft," Harry grumped, staring down at their two separate arms, each decorated with the same piece, the same protective charm, and it seemed Draco had sprung for the engraving too, because his snitch had a tiny HD inscribed on its belly. "Just…just," he shrugged, because he wasn't saying it if Draco wasn't saying it. "You know," he muttered darkly. "You know."

"Oh, I do," Draco's eyes glittered, the melt stayed for a moment. Suddenly the noise of the café seemed much heightened; Harry noticed it, just as he noticed the death grip Draco had on his collar. "I do know, but—"

"But?"

Not that it was any less true.

"But, come along, Harry," Draco made to rise, and Harry saw the waitress hurrying along with their bill. "Let's go home, alright? Time to leave."

"Yeah, okay," Harry agreed, more than willing. "Um…"

'Um, what""

"Er…nothing. Sorry."

He'd not mucked it up then; there was a warm glow within him that could light up any glowering damp city skies that could keep him toasty through any length of boring meetings to come.

"Alright. I'll just—"

Draco used his newly-bangled hand to dig out his billfold, forestalling the waitress's determined approach by throwing down a generous heap of Muggle money on the sticky, wrapping strewn table top. Kept hold of Harry the whole time, though, with the other unadorned one. Unless he counted it as being adorned with Harry.

And that idea had Harry biting his lips to keep from grinning.

"Next year," Draco murmured as they turned to go, low and intimate, and meant only for Harry's ears. "Next year, Harry, it's the rings in the window. Did you see?"

"What?"

Harry's heart was likely to stop. Certainly it banged against his ribs like the very dickens. Next year! Next year—and the year after that—and on and on, till forever.

He'd certainly seen the rings, a matching pair. Had admired them and shied away, afraid. It was too soon, he didn't know if Draco would…the bracelet was all he could manage, this year, and even that. Even that! He'd take such a huge leap of faith, giving that: _Here's my heart. Here's my hope. Will you have it?_

"Next year," Draco was so warm and hard and hot beside him, their sides and hips pressed together as they eased their way through the maze of tables. "Without fail, Harry. I promise."

"Oh, god, Draco…" Harry moaned. For it was sinking in, the 'next year' bit. Molten through his very chest, nearly exploding it—that, and his brain, which duly imploded.

_Next year!_

The Muggles only gasped a bit—bless them—at the sight of two young men. Strangely-garbed young men at that, wearing weirdly sewn topcoats against the cold and ratty mufflers badged with school patches no one recognized, and with sparkling, bemused eyes, made only for one another. Only gawped kindly but quietly when the two clogged the bustling entrance, having paused to snog, the smaller of whom—the brunet one, with the interesting scar and those amazing eyes—practically flinging himself into the taller one's reaching arms.

They were laughing.

The Muggles—the ones who even noticed, for they'd all business of their own to mind—chuckled along, almost without volition. It was Christmas, after all, and the first snowflakes blew brilliant through the open door. Like crystal cobwebs, cartwheeling madly—madly. And melting upon the crest of warm air that carried them, as the two men were melding together, seamless and shining.

"Oh! Oh, Draco!"

"Harry."

_Young love_, they murmured. _Isn't it?_ And the older ladies blushed as red as Harry's nape and the younger ladies eyed them maybe a bit enviously. And the few men-folk amongst smiled softly behind their cup brims. _Must be. Well…more power to them, _was the general consensus_. T'is the season, isn't it? _

_Tiger wishes Happy Hollydaze to all. Safe and merry, rest ye. See you again in the next year! _


End file.
